Message from the President

Dr. Thomas P. Rosandich, President & CEO

As the President and Chief Executive Officer of the United States Sports Academy I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to our website. We hope that your online tour of the institution will be both enjoyable and informative and that you will find what you are looking for in our little corner of cyberspace.

The Academy was founded in 1972 with the mission to upgrade the profession of sport which within the United States was in a state of disarray at the time. It was clear that the best means of addressing this situation was through education and so the initial impetus for the creation of the Academy came from the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA). These professional sport administrators and coaches whose backgrounds also included working in an educational environment played an instrumental role in the development of the Academy’s curriculum. Thus the Academy more than 40 years ago became the first and only free standing, accredited school of sport in America, a distinction that continues to this day.

The curriculum and degree offerings of the Academy include the Bachelor of Sport Science (B.S.S.) in four disciplines, Master of Sport Science (M.S.S.) in five disciplines and Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Sport Management. The Academy also offers a wide array of continuing education and certificate programs. The reach of the Academy has been enormous having delivered sport education programs in more than 60 countries around the world.

Since the Academy’s founding, the institution has graduated 1,000’s of students and as the founding President, it is particularly gratifying to me that about three quarters of all of our alumni are working in some capacity within the sport profession. The success of these alumni is also legion, ranging from collegiate Division I coaches, to senior sport administrators in professional sports and athletic directors at the university level. We also count among our alumni professional athletes and Olympic gold medal winners, not only from the United States but also from abroad. Given our track record of success, we can truly say that the United States Sports Academy is “America’s Sports University.”

The Academy has also always been an innovator in higher education. Our marketing tagline in the Academy’s early days was “Learn from the Great Ones” and this was true whether it was in classroom sessions on triple option football, a study tour to the Montreal Olympics or the Academy’s innovative mentorship program that imparted practical skills through experiential learning.

As times have changed since the founding of the institution in the early 1970’s, so too has the Academy. Today the institution is technologically driven with all of our courses being available through online delivery. These have also been designed with the utmost flexibility to meet the demanding life styles of today’s students with innovations such as rolling registration that allows students to start whenever they are ready instead of having to wait until the school is ready.

The Academy also supports student learning and research with an electronic-based library through which students can access over 1½ billion records held in 71,000 libraries in some 112 countries around the world.

The service component is also important to the institution. As a service to the profession the Academy publishes the online “The Sport Journal” which is thought to be the most accessed referred publication in the sport profession. More than a quarter of a million readers annually visit the site to access the peer-reviewed academic journal. The faculty also encourages students to publish through “The Sport Digest” another current event publication also registered with the Library of Congress.

The Academy has a dedication to culture that finds its expression through a division of the institution called the American Sport Art Museum and Archives (ASAMA). It is true that a society is reflected in the games that people play and in many languages around the world, the word “sports” can literally be translated as “physical culture”. Sport has always provided a natural tie between the physical and the visual and the ASAMA holdings include more than 1,500 pieces of art in all mediums.

ASAMA is open to the public and plays host to the individual visitors and special groups ranging from school kids to senior citizens. The Academy also recognizes excellence in sport through its annual awards program entitled, “The Academy’s Awards of Sport: A Tribute to the Artist and the Athlete,” An annual worldwide ballot conducted in conjunction with USA Today and NBC Sports selects the Athlete of the Year as well as the Outstanding Male and Female Athletes. The Academy also recognizes contributors to the advancement of the profession of sport through its medallion series, of which a full description can be found elsewhere in this site.

The Academy prides itself on the commitment of its faculty and staff with helping its students grow and to prepare them for responsible positions within the profession of sport. This commitment is reflected in the fact that over 95% of the Academy’s students would recommend our educational programs to their friends and colleagues and there is little that is more important than that. In closing, we hope that you will join us and our long line of distinguished alumni, on your road to a career in sport.